When even Mark Halperin can’t find a good angle for Romney’s stunt, it’s gotta be bad.
Unless the Romney campaign has gamed this crisis out in some manner completely invisible to the Gang of 500, his doubling down on criticism of the President for the statement coming out of Cairo is likely to be seen as one of the most craven and ill-advised tactical moves in this entire campaign.
Some moments show you when a candidate is ready or not to become President of the United States. I suspect last night will become one of those moments for Mitt Romney. The verdict will not be positive.
As I noted last night, when the full scale of the events in Cairo and Benghazi remained unknown, the Romney campaign let fly a crude political attack both blaming the Obama administration for the attacks and suggesting that the President actually sympathized with them. This was after it was known that an as yet-unnamed Foreign Service Officer (later identified as Sean Smith) had died.
CNN anchor Carol Costello goes on the air and reads US Embassy statement and Romney condemnation without noting that Embassy statement was released prior to the attacks.
10:51 PM: If I’m not mistaken Wolf Blitzer just did the same thing. Amazing.
Here’s the rush transcript of Blitzer’s remarks …
Mitt Romney just a little while before the president issued a very strong statement himself, condemning these attacks but at the same time the same time condemning the initial statement by the US Embassy in Cairo which was clearly a misguided statement that went after those who produced these kinds of films. And didn’t directly, directly condemn those who attacked the US Embassy in Cairo.
Again, if the press reports are accurate, the statement came before the attacks. So it couldn’t condemn a future event.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will make a statement from the State Department shortly, then she and president Obama will make a joint appearance in the White House Rose Garden at 10:35 a.m. ET.
Reports this morning that the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, has been killed in an attack in Benghazi. Details are still sketchy, but Reuters’ account suggests Stevens and other State Department staff were fleeing the consulate, after the earlier attack on the consulate which killed a staffer, when their car came under rocket attack. Three others were also reportedly killed in the attack on Stevens’ vehicle.
The State Department has not yet confirmed the second attack, or the death of Stevens and the additional staffers.
Desperate about the state of the presidential race, RNC Chair Reince Priebus tweets this moments ago …
Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt.Sad and pathetic.
— Reince Priebus (@Reince) September 12, 2012
This would be doubling down on the Romney campaign’s lie from two hours ago.
As noted, we have two simultaneous crises washing over Washington tonight from the Middle East. First, the US-Israel blow up, which I discussed below. Next, riots which escalated into full-scale attacks on US embassies in Cairo and Benghazi, triggered by another stunt by Quran-burning ‘pastor’ Terry Jones down in Florida.
A State Department officer was actually killed in the attack on the compound in Benghazi.
In the midst of this, the Romney campaign put out this statement …
“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”
So Romney jumps to politicize a genuine crisis in which a Foreign Service Officer has been killed. And the attack itself is based on a falsehood. The reference is to a statement released by the Embassy in Egypt which in fact came out before the attacks took place. The entire thing is based on a lie. Here’s our full story.
See below for my quick take on the dynamics of what’s happening tonight between the White House and the Netanyahu government.
Regardless of the particular in and outs, though, here’s why this is ominous. Given the highly politicized nature of the crisis, the White House really, really, really does not want to get into blowup right now with the Israeli government. Not less than 60 days before a national election. Just as much they want to keep unified pressure on the Iranians. The fact that they’re walking right into one suggests they feel they have no choice.
As one reader just said, this has the feel of an endgame on the long drama over an attack on Iran.
We have a high-octane tussle tonight between the White House and the Netanyahu government in Israel. It started with a Netanyahu speech suggesting that the US had lost its “moral right” to block an Israeli attack on Iran by failing to put red lines beyond which Iran couldn’t go.
That was followed by a leak from Netanyahu’s team claiming that Netanyahu had requested a meeting with Obama when he travels to the UN — only to be refused. The White House scrambled tonight putting out a flat denial of that claim. In essence, the White House called the Israelis liars. Read More